


Where Have You Been All These Minutes?

by Atrokiss



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Humor, i think the waitress is morosexual too cos dee is...so stoopid but thats ok cos shes trying!!, macden takes a backseat but theyre still there being dumbasses in love, morosexual rights and all, not sure whats widely used for her but i chose ellie for no reason other than i think it suits her, the waitress gets a name!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-27
Updated: 2019-04-27
Packaged: 2020-02-07 05:53:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18614470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Atrokiss/pseuds/Atrokiss
Summary: A self indulgent quick lil thing about the waitress and dee being happy together in honor of lesbian day of visibility!!!!!!! Happy LDOV to all my lesbians out there this ones for you!!!!(Dee tries to plan out a fancy date night for her and her girlfriends anniversary, things go wrong, she relies on the gang to help and things go even more wrong)





	Where Have You Been All These Minutes?

**Author's Note:**

> Happy LDOV!!!!! i just wanted to write smth short and sweet, hope all u lesbians had a good day and enjoy!! [⚢](https://saintmilksteak.tumblr.com)
> 
> PS: The title is from a song called Sappho by Frankie Cosmos!! <3

"Listen, I'm not saying it's completely implausible, Charlie. I'm just thinkin' that you're gonna need a lot of birds before you're gonna be able to lift yourself up off the ground."

"Okay but what if we're talkin' like, big storks? You know. They have the strength and those big beaks. Plus they carry all those babies down to Earth so-"

Mac collapses to the wood of the bar, his arms folding out in front of him, careful not to knock his beer over. Beside him Dennis scoffs, absolutely baffled by nearly everything Charlie has said. "I'm not even going to try and unpack that," he says as he shakes his head, taking a long pull from his own beer.

"What if I use cats then?"

Mac sits up swift and quick, "How about you just get to work on time?" he cries out and gives Dennis a look like he was expecting him to chime in some how. When he found no support there he looked over to Dee who was sat looking far removed from this. She was on her phone, her brow furrowed as she tucked her hair behind her ear and began typing quickly. "Hey, Dee! Can I have some back up over here?" he asks because sometimes she was on his side, and as much as he hated to admit it. He huffs big and loud when he gets no answer. "Whatever, bitch." 

Dee waved her hand at him from across the bar without taking her eyes off of her phone screen. Mac gave Dennis a questioning look, to which ue shrugged off, he was her twin but he couldn't read her mind. 

She headed towards the back office and picked up her phone, placing it to her ear and scowling up at the ceiling waiting for it to pick up. 

"C'mon, Artemis," she says as she crosses her arms and clenches her jaw tight. 

"Hey," she says on the other end, sounding a little disheveled. 

"Tell me you got the reservations," Dee said without returning the greeting. When Artemis didn't answer Dee groaned, stomping her fit a little in a moment of anger. "God dammit you had one job!" she whispered hoarsely, careful to keep her voice down so the others wouldn't hear.

Artemis had this affair with one of the managers at the Blue Martini, she could get Dee a reservation for cheap, it was a shitty spot but it was still very high class. More high class than Dee could afford on her own. 

"I'm sorry. Jerry and I got in a fight 'cos he's too good to get lightly fisted all of a sudden-"

"Stop oh my God stop right there. I don't want to hear about your disgusting hook ups, Art!" She could hear her shrug through the phone. Dee pulled at her eyes and groaned, weighing her options in her head. "Okay, that's. It’s fine. Don't worry about it I'll have to figure something out."

"Sorry I couldn't help you get laid more. Truly I am. Any missed opportunity to bone is a tragedy in itself."

"Yeah thank you whatever bye." Dee shut her phone and grumbled to herself, wanting to throw a fit with all that frustration pricking at the sides of her skull. 

She throws open the office door and sulks back to her spot at the end, scrolling through her phone and resting her head in the palm of her cheek, sighing to herself as she looked up a semi decent restaurant that wouldn't make her bankrupt. 

Dee wasn't made from soft things. She was born out of hardness and leather, with metal thing protruding from her body like the sharpness of her elbows or the cut of her hips. She wasn't soft or dainty like most girls, she didn't know romance or anything like that. She just wasn't cut out for these sort of things, like it was just some sort of fatalistic thing, a destiny of hers to always be callous and unfeeling. She looked across the bar at her brother and Mac who was leaning forward on his elbows, staring at him beneath hooded eyes. They looked like something out of an old romance movie when Dennis leaned in from behind the bar and kissed him long and deep. He smiled into it like somebody on the other side of a movie screen directed him to. They looked like they were in love, and Dee was beginning to feel like she had no idea how to do that, and that maybe she just wasn't made for good things like that.

"What do you want, Dee?" her brother asks, Mac sitting back down to raise an eyebrow at her. "Hello?" his voice cuts through her trance and she shakes her head, getting up from the stool to sit beside them. 

She leans in real close and eyes them as though she was trying to study the way they moved and interacted with one another like it was an alien thing. "I need you to help me," she said and they both laughed. She scowled and cursed at them. "Assholes," she grumbled somewhere around a hushed please. 

"With what?" Mac asked, sitting back like it was his turn to inspect her. 

"I need you to help me decorate the bar." She thought up the excuse as she spoke, knowing they'd never agree to just let her have it to herself this evening. 

"Why would we ever do that," Mac laughs sharply, Dennis agrees. 

"Because we should have like a- a romance night or something, you know? A real classy event, draw some more lonely losers in to the bar." 

Dennis breaks out into a grin that said nothing but mischievousness. "Yeah okay, romance. I like that, I can do that. Im a connoisseur of romance."

"Like hell you are dude, I'm way more romantic than you." Mac sits up a little straighter as he stood his ground, trying to romanticize his domineering glare. 

"Oh yeah? Who plans our date nights every month, and who pays for those date nights?" Dennis argues, cocking his brow at him as he dries an empty shot glass. 

"That's bullshit! It's the little things that count, date nights are cheap shit dude. I always cook and clean, and I make you mixtapes for the commute-"

"It doesn't count if you're just doing it for yourself man." 

Dee was completely lost to their argument, the favor already forgotten between the two of them. "Hey!" she said, snapping their attention back to her. "So you'll do it?" Dennis looked at Mac and then back at her. 

"Yeah but only to prove I'm the romantic in the relationship." 

Mac rolled his eyes and resigned back to his beer. Dee sighed partly with relief and partly in anticipation for all the work she'd need to do for tonight. She drummed her fingers against the bar and got up to leave. 

“Where are you going?” Dennis asks, only caring that she was leaving because he couldn’t. “You still have to work, Dee—”

“I’m getting lunch with Ellie,” she said as she furrowed her brow. “I’ve told you this like a hundred times you guys, are you kidding me?”

“Whose, Ellie I don’t. I don’t know who that is, Dennis who is that?” Mac said to which Dennis just shook his hand, holding out his hands to show he was just as clueless. 

Dee shook her head, her mouth all agape with how truly thoughtless they could be. She slammed the door to the bar and made her way to Ellie’s house, her hands tucked into her pockets as she turned her thoughts over in her head. She was relying on her brother, a thought that made her itch. She would text him what to get and she wouldn’t explain a thing to them; they were on a need to know basis at this point. 

There was this need she had for things to go perfectly today. She needed the wind to blow just right and for the sunlight to fall just so on the weeds crawling up through the cracks in the sidewalk. If things are going to go wrong, she needed it to go wrong her way. 

She walked up the steps to her apartment, opening the metal encasing the wood of the door and knocking relentlessly. She loved the familiarity of this street, of the same cars she sees parked outside, the same trash cans that are somehow always overflowing, and how everytime she walks by the bike rack she needs to remind Ellie to lock hers up. She opens the door and smiles at her big and wide and stupid, they do this everyday but somehow Dee has never gotten sick of seeing her face. 

“Hey,” Ellie says, tucking a chunk of her hair behind her ear in a way that made Dee wish she had done it for her. 

“Hi,” she says in return and holds up a plastic bag full of food that is full of preservatives and all things that were sure to raise their blood pressure by mid-afternoon. “Got some stuff from the bodega down the street,” she says as Ellie steps aside to let her in and shut the door. They climb the stairs and Dee lets herself into her apartment. “Did you know they have Dunk-a-roos now? I haven’t seen these things since the 90’s,” she remarks setting the bag down on her desk. 

“No way,” Ellie says, moving to sit on the edge of her bed shoved up against the wall, protruding into the middle of the room. “Gimme some I wanna try.” She reaches her hand out and Dee gives her a look.

“You mean you’ve never even had them before?” She looked wildly offended but relented, digging some out of the plastic bag and carefully watching her reaction as she bit into one.

“I mean,” she says around a bite. “They’re just shitty cookies dipped in chocolate but, I can see the appeal.” 

Dee chuckles and tries not to be mad about her insulting her favorite childhood snack, moving towards her and mumbles something like, “Me too,” before leaning in and kissing her. It was quiet and muted, just a short display of affection for the way that the way she sat there eating cookies and making Dee’s heart all warm and melted around the edges. She kissed her as if to thank her for making her feel soft in ways she did not know possible. 

She pulled away and sat next to her, as close as she could without feeling claustrophobic in the tiny space of her apartment. “We should just eat at my apartment from now on, or go out somewhere. Your's is too damn small.” Dee didn’t mind coming here necessarily, she knew it was more convenient for them both and she just liked being around her, wherever that may be. 

“I think maybe your legs are just too long,” she joked, and Dee rolled her eyes. If anybody else had said that she might’ve gotten mean, might’ve turned her edges sharp and wiry cruel. But the moment she looked at her to even feign offense, the anger had dissipated. 

They ate in silence; watching Tv and grabbing more food out of the bag. The light that came through her blinds fell in little pools on her floor, it clung to the outline of Dee’s figure and wrapped her in a sort of angelic light. Ellie liked seeing her this way, all distracted and unassuming. She kept looking over at her periodically, her eyes shiting from the screen to her profile. She pulled her legs a little closer to her chest as though she was getting on the defense for whatever she was about to ask.

“Hey um, speaking of going out or whatever—” she began, making her words small and yielding. “Do we have any plans or anything for tonight?”

Dee’s eyes widened the smallest bit. She cleared her throat and sniffed, trying to remain ignorant. “Uh no, for what?” she said, and the moment she did she watched Ellie deflate a little, her shoulders falling into themselves as she turned her gaze back to the Tv.

“No just, it’s nothing, no reason.” She offered Dee a smile and they kept like that for the rest of their respective lunch breaks; which technically only one of them was officially given. 

Dee shifted in her spot and dug out her phone, frantically checking in with Dennis to make sure things were running smoothly. He just texted back a winky face and she felt a gnawing at her gut that told her they definitely had a vision for this evening and it was not one she was going to be pleased with. 

Dee kissed her goodbye and hated how she felt so distant and sad beneath her. She grabbed her hip and pulled her in, trying to tell her to just be patient. Maybe she should've just told her, spoiled the whole thing and they could spend the evening in, but she was stubborn and wouldn’t desert all of the hard work she’d already put into planning this damn thing. Dee couldn’t stand to be alone with that sad smile any longer so she left, waved goodbye and headed back to the bar. 

Artemis was standing outside smoking, her head bent back against the brick wall and lips pouted around a plume of smoke that fell from them. She nodded towards the entrance of the bar when she saw Dee crossing the street  
She tossed her cigarette on the ground and snuffed it out with her shoe. “I just stopped by to check on them, the guys are definitely in there making a mess of your evening,” she says as she kicks the bits of ash left behind into the street. “Might wanna go in there and check it out.”

Dee groaned and pushed her way through the entrance. Dennis was standing beneath a string of lights that were hanging from the ceiling, looking as though they were about to crash and fall onto their heads at any moment. He was arguing with Mac who had a box of various heart shaped things that he was trying to keep him from grabbing. Charlie was at a table in the back fastening some sort of trap out of the leftover lights. 

“Guys, what the hell is this shit? C’mon I asked you to help me out,” she says, walking in towards her brother. 

“Dennis is saying we should be going classy, but I think cheesy is actually where it’s at Dee. You see it’s all about the charm which comes from—”

“No, no, no, no—” she cuts him off, grabbing the box from him and shoving it onto the bar. “I specifically said classy, guys what the hell. Did you get any of this shit I asked for?”

Dennis gave Mac a look that said, I told you so, and looked down at his hands like he was a nervous child. “Well sort of, we got all the lights and shit but we can’t figure out how to hang them up. And also we spent most of the money on Mac’s clearance Valentine's day shit and pink wine.” He gestured over to the bar where there was one too many bottles scattered across it.

Dee leaned to look over Dennis’ shoulder, gawking at Charlie who cried out when he pinched his finger in something. “Jesus Christ, does anybody know what the hell he’s doing?”

 

Mac and Dennis shared a look and he said, “No, not really.”

 

Dee marched over and he looked up looking charred and electrified, like he’d somehow been rolled up in mud despite only having gone to the store and back. “What are you doing?”

“I’m gonna attract a goblin—” he explained, setting the mess of lights down at the table. “They’re actually masters of romance you know, so you just gotta get ‘em in the right mood, and Dennis says if you bait the traps with brie cheese it's very sensual—”

Dee glared over at Dennis who just shrugged. “God okay no, gimme these,” she says taking the lights from Charlie and leaving him with a lethal combination of cheese and broken beer bottles. “I’ll do everything myself I guess. I asked you guys for one Goddamn thing and you can't do it. So I'll just do it myself like I always do. Fuck."

They all stood there in the wake of her voice, all shrill and bouncing off the empty space between their ears. She heaved over a chair and stood on it, trying to adjust the lights while she yelled at Dennis to put some candles around the tables. He mumbled something about a fire hazard but she ignored him. Mac was haphazardly taping hearts onto the walls and bickering with Dennis over the fact that Valentines day isn’t the called holiday of love and affection for nothing. Somewhere amidst the chaos the door broke open and a little sliver of light fell across the floor of the bar. Dee could hear Artemis saying something about, “You probably shouldn’t go in there,” or “Just wait a minute,” but it was too late. 

Ellie stood there, her face blank with emotion as she just tried to take it all in. Dee was still standing on a bar stool, just barely hanging on by the wooden post in the middle of the room. Mac and Dennis stood frozen by the wall, hearts and bows and arrows fluttering to the ground. It was a chaotic sight to be greeted with and Dee felt her heart sink. This wasn’t how this was supposed to go at all. They were supposed to be at an expensive restaurant eating fancy breadsticks and drinking good wine and a subpar table. They weren't supposed to be at this shitty bar with her shitty friends ruining what was the only relationship she’d ever truly given a shit about before. 

“Ellie I—” Dee stepped down off of the stool and walked towards her. “I’m so sorry I tired, I really did try. I know this isn’t the Blue Martini, but you deserve so much and I—” she stopped short of herself, swallowing around the white hot embarrassment scratching at her throat. “I just wanted to give you something nice, you know. For our anniversary. I just wanted to do that ‘cos, you deserve nice things."

Ellie stood there still surveying the room, she caught the eyes of everyone in there, saw them all paused in a frantic attempt to make this a nice romantic evening for the two of them, she saw Dee who has probably never done a nice thing for anyone in her life trying, really trying. And most of all remembering, she remembered their anniversary and that’s all that really mattered anyway. 

She shook her head and laughed. She blinked and Dee nearly missed the tears pricking at the corners of her eyes. She laughed and kissed Dee so hard she almost fell over with the force of it. She stood up on her tippy toes and wrapped her arms around Dee’s neck, just kissing her and kissing her until she felt her relax into her arms. “I love it,” she said softly. “I don’t even care I love it so much, you remembered.”

Dee pulled back a little to better look at her, “Course I did,” she said. “Of course I remembered.”

She heard her brother call back, “It’s only been like two months you geeks,” and she just flipped him off, leaning back in to kiss her girlfriend. 

The melody coming from the jukebox hummed softy in the air. The flicker of the candles broke through the dark where the lights didn’t touch, encompassing Dee and Ellie’s frame and casting them in a soft glow. They danced together and Dee tucked her hair behind her ear, letting her fingers linger by her temples and bringing her in close so she could kiss her just so. 

“This is so nice, Dee,” she remarked, looking around at the bar. It looked halfway decent with all the lights dimmed. “Why were you so worried about it?” she asked with earnest, but how could Dee not want everything for the girl that deserved so much more? 

“I dunno,” she laughed. “I’ve never done anything like this before. I just wanted it to be perfect, because you deserve that. And I know you never really got to go out to fancy restaurants and all that.”

Ellie huffed, shaking her head. “I don’t care about any of that. It’s just nice to be around you. I don’t care whose apartment we’re at or where we got to eat, I just want to be with you.”

Dee felt as though her heart might catch on fire like the heat of a candle flame to the wood of the bar, it was something that felt an awful lot like love burning a hole straight through her. How she deserved any of this she didn’t exactly know, but sometime in between the time she realized she liked girls, and that she liked this one specific girl, she was so panicked that it was all over. That this was truly the end and she should resign herself to a life alone forever. Never in her wildest dreams did she ever imagine it could get this good. 

Over at the bar, Dennis leaned over to Charlie who was hiding his frown with his beer. “How you holdin’ up dude?” he asked him, watched flickers of anger and sadness and something that looked a little like approval. 

“It sucks dude,” he says, head swinging with the alcohol humming through his system. “My trap would’ve worked so I don’t see why we could've used it—”

“No not that you idiot, I’m talking about the waitress and my sister.” Dennis gave Mac ho stood behind him a look of exasperation. He just laughed. 

“Oh. Yeah I mean. I’m tryin’ not to think about it. It hurts like shit though.” 

Dennis nods and feels Mac wrap an arm around his waist, pulls him in closer and looks out towards Dee with her own arms around her girlfriend. “I know buddy, but I think this is gonna last, unfortunately.” 

“Yeah,” Mac says beside him. “Those two are in love.” Dennis hums a little and widens his eyes when Mac remarks, “It’s gross.”

Dennis elbows him, “We are in love too, dumbass." 

“Yeah but we aren’t gross about it like they are,” Mac says and glares at Charlie when he tries to disagree. 

They all look out at them, swaying beneath the shadow and light of the bar. There's a beat of silence before Dennis says, "Still can't remember her name though." 

Mac squints like he could draw a recollection from her face but it was too obscured by Dee's large shoulders. "Yeah no, it's not comin' to me." 

Charlie taps the neck of his beer and hums, testing out different names to see if any ring a bell. "Maybe Annie? Emma? Ester?"

Dennis shakes his head, "Nah. Doesn't matter. We'll learn it eventually." All three of them oblivious to the fact that they've known her since high school, and if they haven't learned it by now they probably never would.

Their argument dies down and they all leave them be, just let them be together for once in a way they never thought they’d get to, because what they have is a big and bright and beautiful thing. It isn’t fancy or studded with diamonds that catch the light. It’s just this, the two of them holding each other, talking in hushed voices and saying things nobody but themselves are ever meant to hear. Because for once they have this, and it is good, and it is deserving, and it is love.


End file.
